


Is That Your Gun Or--

by sealdog



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Implausibly Tight Spaces, M/M, Really Tight Spaces, Tight Spaces, its a sexy-plot device just go w it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 11:16:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8798785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealdog/pseuds/sealdog
Summary: Rhys gives in, and stops in his tracks so he can glare at August properly.“Cut it out!” Rhys snaps, blocking August’s path when he tries to shove past Rhys. “I’m trying not to get us caught here, and you being all judgey is not helping.”“How can I, when there’s just so much to judge,” August says, and takes the punch that Rhys gives his chest without so much as a flinch. Insulted and aggrieved, Rhys raises his arm to punch him again, only to freeze up as August grabs his arm and pulls him over to the side, behind an oddly shaped piece of debris.“Shut up, I think Sasha heard us,” August hisses, right into Rhys’ ear.---Rhys and August try to be sneaky, and end up stuck in a tight space. Literally. Things get awkward.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jpo2107](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jpo2107/gifts).



> [jill](http://jilldrawblog.tumblr.com) asked for august/rhys in a tight space. ask and ye shall receive, buddy :3c hope u like it!!
> 
> set in ep5 (i think??) before the big boss fight and shit. its been a while since i replayed tftbl, oops. unbeta-ed, lmk if u find typos!

The mission briefing takes longer than Rhys expects, and by the time Fiona folds up the map and dismisses them, Elpis is bright and shining in the purple night sky. It’s odd, even after all these months, to look up and not see Helios’ shadow. Odder still, to be standing in the wreckage of Helios itself, knowing that they’re all going to sleep in it tonight.

Rhys wanders over to where Vaughn’s adjusting his scarf, the shine of his best bro’s newfound bandit-badassness still not quite worn off yet.

“Hey, Va--” he cuts himself off when he realises that Vaughn’s already talking to someone. Talking to Sasha, to be exact. Both of them have their heads tucked in close to one another, Sasha’s hands moving animatedly as she explains something. Vaughn has a serious expression on his face, and Rhys tells himself they must still be talking about the plan, which works right up until Vaughn suddenly dissolves into laughter, his unfamiliarly bearded face suddenly looking a lot more familiar as his eyes crinkle up and he laughs, hard enough that his entire body shakes. Sasha’s smiling too, head tilted as she watches Vaughn, and Rhys tamps down a twinge of jealousy with mild mortification.

Look, it’s not like he’s blind or anything. Now that Vaughn’s (really nice) arms and (even nicer) abs aren’t hidden by his baggy formal shirts and his really nice eyes aren’t hidden behind his glasses, Vaughn looks...really good. The beard helps, too. And Sasha’s somehow gotten even prettier in the last few months. With her hair up like that, her neck looks really delicate, somehow more mature and elegant than before. Rhys is still somewhat mortified by the way their reintroduction had gone down, but it’s not like the embarrassment had stopped him from noticing just how good she looked.

If Rhys is being honest, reuniting with all his old friends after his long solitude has been really nice, but at the same time, everybody looks so good now that he’s finding it hard to concentrate on their big, world-saving mission. It’s an entirely different set of problems from the ones he’d grown used to working with in the past few months, so he’s feeling more than a little out of his depth, and the whole, surrounded-by-really-hot-friends bit really isn’t helping.

Rhys knows that the right thing to do now would be to head to his assigned bunk and get a good, early night’s rest for tomorrow. But Vaughn had promised to show him around the ruins of Helios, and instead he’s now heading off with Sasha, both of them still laughing and chatting, and Rhys is just following along because he still wants that tour, that’s all.

At least, that’s what he tells himself as he trails along behind them as discreetly as he can. Nothing to do with the fact that Sasha now has her hand tucked into Vaughn’s elbow, or the fact that Vaughn’s practically skipping as he leads Sasha to- wherever it is they’re going.

He’s so intent on staying out of their sight but within following distance that he doesn’t see the leg in his path until it’s almost too late.

“F--” He stifles his yelp, and catches himself before he actually trips.

When he turns around, August is right there, smirking, with his arms crossed over his chest. Rhys glares at him, and resists the urge to kick his stupid leg.

“What the hell was that for, asshole?”

“I could be asking you the same thing,” August replies. “Tripping over people’s legs like that.”

He doesn’t bother to keep his voice down, and looks bemused at Rhys’ attempts to shush him, slapping Rhys’ hand away irritably. Rhys glances over to where Vaughn and Sasha had been, but they don’t seem to have noticed, thankfully. August follows his line of sight, and his eyes narrow. Rhys kind of wants to laugh at how August straightens up, and his metaphorical hackles rise. Maybe not entirely metaphorical.

“What’s your weirdly buff friend doing with Sash?” August all but growls, taking a step towards them.

Rhys yanks him back with one hand fisted in his jacket. “First of all, it’s none of your business, metalface. Didn’t Sasha break up with you like, a thousand times already? Second of all, that’s what I was _doing_ , dumbass. Until I got interrupted. By a dumbass.”

August bares his teeth in a distinctly unfriendly manner towards Rhys, before heading off in Sasha and Vaughn’s direction, clearly intent on interrupting them.

“Hey!” Rhys hisses, lunging after him and grabbing his elbow. He keeps his voice low as he continues. “Don’t interrupt them, that’s rude.”

“Like creeping on them from afar is any better,” August retorts, but he slows down.

“We’re not creeping. We’re _observing_ ,” Rhys corrects him, and steps past him to continue after their friends.

They follow Sasha and Vaughn as they make their way through the winding passages of Helios’ ruins. Sometimes they walk through intact corridors that make Rhys feel like if he just looked out of the windows, he’d see space and stars and Pandora, thousands of miles away. Then they cross a window, and he sees the purple hued dusk of Pandoran desert, or the corridor they’re in ends, and they step through half-crushed doorways and into more open spaces made from fallen steel beams and bare sheets of metal clearly salvaged from wreckage, and the illusion is broken.

The entire way, August keeps up a running, silent commentary of dark looks in Vaughn’s direction and sneers at Rhys’ attempts to be sneaky.

About five minutes and the third smirk August tosses his way when Rhys bangs his head against a low lying beam, Rhys gives in, and stops in his tracks so he can glare at August properly.

“Cut it out!” Rhys snaps, blocking August’s path when he tries to shove past Rhys. “I’m _trying_ not to get us caught here, and you being all judgey is _not_ helping.”

“How can I, when there’s just _so much_ to judge,” August says, and takes the punch that Rhys gives his chest without so much as a flinch. Insulted and aggrieved, Rhys raises his arm to punch him again, only to freeze up as August grabs his arm and pulls him over to the side, behind an oddly shaped piece of debris.

“Shut up, I think Sasha heard us,” August hisses, _right into Rhys’ ear_.

Rhys flinches back, trying to shove August away, but August just presses in closer, and one hand comes up to cover Rhys’ face. His hand is large, calloused, and very warm against Rhys’ mouth and nose, and it suddenly gets really hard to breathe. He wants very badly to bite it, just to spite August, but he can hear footsteps heading their way, so he settles for trying to kill August with his eyes.

Damnit, he _knew_ he should’ve worked on some echo-eye program to- to shoot lasers or something, he doesn’t know what exactly, but something deadly, that’s for sure. It’s hard to think coherently when an asshole like August is being so up close and invasive in his personal space, with his stupid face, and his stupid blond pointy hair, and his stupidly blue eyes.

Rhys is feeling kind of uncomfortable right now, is all he’s saying.

It doesn’t help that, as the footsteps draw closer, August presses them both even further into the little cranny that they’re in, his entire body pressed up against Rhys’.

Rhys tries to convey with his eyes that this entire situation is _really uncomfortable_ , but August doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He’s got his head tilted, eyes unfocused as he listens for the footsteps, which seem to have paused.

“Vaughn, I swear I heard something from over here.” Sasha’s voice is a lot nearer than Rhys expects, and the jolt of adrenaline that runs through him seems to be mirrored in August, going by his wide-eyed, panicked look at Rhys.

Rhys glances around their cranny frantically, but it’s not very well-lit, and the space is just barely wide enough to fit them both, and he’s all but resigned himself to an incredibly awkward explanation when August’s eyes widen further, and he drops to his knees.

“Wh--” Rhys cuts himself off, backpedalling as quietly as he can and feeling his shoulders dig into the debris behind him as he tries to get away from August’s face, which is incredibly and uncomfortably near his crotch right now.

Undeterred, August ducks down, and starts crawling past Rhys’ left leg, into- oh, that’s smart. Rhys drops down as well, and starts shoving at August to speed him up as he crawls through the low crack in the debris that he’d found. Once August is most of the way through, Rhys ducks in and wriggles into the space as quickly and silently as he can, just in time, going by the thudding footsteps right next to where they were before.

Panicked, trying to listen hard to Sasha and Vaughn’s footsteps, and inching himself further into the crack so his shoes aren’t exposed, it takes Rhys a while to realise that the ground he’s lying on isn’t actually ground. It’s dark, and Rhys can’t really see anything, but the ground definitely doesn’t feel like rock or sand. He starts patting slowly at the ground beneath his face, testing the oddly firm (but not rock-firm) surface, but the surface suddenly drops away a couple of inches above his head. Confused, Rhys starts fumbling around, only to freeze when August’s voice comes, right beneath his hand.

“Move your hand any more and you’re gonna need a second robotic one.” August’s voice is barely audible, more a breath than anything, but Rhys can hear the irritation loud and clear.

Feel it too, because now that he realises what’s beneath his hand, he realises that the scratchy thing beneath his hand can only be August’s beard, and the softer surface beneath it must be his lips. Which are weirdly softer than Rhys had expected, but he tries not to think too hard about that.

He’s basically trying not to think too hard about _anything_ right now, because if he does, he’ll have to think about how he’s lying on August’s body. Or how August’s body is weirdly firmer than he’d expected, and broader than he looks. Or how the debris above their bodies could come crashing down at any time, and he and August’s bodies would be stuck here forever like this until the skags came and ate them. Or how August’s belt buckle is really digging into Rhys’ stomach right now.

“Would you. Stop. Moving around.” August hisses, and Rhys jerks in surprise as a large hand clamps down onto his lower back in warning.

“Your stupid belt buckle is really painful,” Rhys hisses right back, keeping his voice equally soft. “Why are you even face up?!”

“I wanted to see how much space we had, dumbass.” August growls, and the fingers of the hand on Rhys’ back tighten painfully. “Didn’t think some idiot would start crawling right after before I said it was safe.”

“They were _right outside_.” Rhys pauses. Beneath the sound of August’s labored breathing (Rhys has a suspicion that August is breathing harder than normal to imply that Rhys is heavy, but he’s not going to dignify that with a response), he can hear shuffling footsteps, and then laughter and what sounds like fabric shifting, and then a couple of thumps. “Oh no,” Rhys breathes out, leaning up as much as he can to try and get a better idea of what’s going on behind the debris.

Beneath him, August makes a choked-off sound. Rhys shushes him absently, head cocked as he tries to hear for a clue.

The debris that makes up Rhys and August’s hideout muffles Sasha and Vaughn’s conversation, so all Rhys can hear is a vague murmur of their familiar voices, interspersed with laughter and the sounds of metal clinking.

Groaning, Rhys lets his head drop back down, and mumbles into August’s shoulder, “I think they’re gonna be here for a while. Ugh.”

“...Great.” August groans, low and-- wow okay, that sounds really weird, so close, and in such an enclosed area.

Rhys tries not to think about it. Instead, he focuses on trying to find a more comfortable position. He tries to shift off of August at one point, but freezes when he ends up knocking against the debris, and the conversation outside falters.

“Stop. Moving.” August mumbles, sounding more and more strained.

“I was _trying_ to get some of my weight off you,” Rhys says indignantly.

“It’s fine,” August says. “Everything’s fine, just. Stop. Moving around. So much. Goddamn.”

Rhys subsides with an irritated mutter about annoying belt buckles and annoying assholes taking up too much space. August doesn’t reply.

They continue to lie there, hearing the murmur of Sasha and Vaughn’s voices outside, and Rhys tries his best to stay as still as possible, but-- that belt buckle is _really irritating_. August’s hipbones don’t help either, and Rhys is growing increasingly aware of how they’re pressed up against each other, body to body. August’s body is warm beneath his, firm and real in a way that makes Rhys half-heartedly wish that August weren’t such an incredibly annoying person, because this...this feels kind of nice.

He’s bored and not really paying much attention to anything, when a sudden hitch in August’s breath catches his attention.

“What? What is it?” Rhys tries to sit up to get a better look at August’s face. What little he can see of it in the shitty lighting of their hiding spot, that is.

“Nothing!” August says, but he sounds even more strained than before. “Please stop moving.”

Caught off-guard by the sudden polite request, Rhys obediently stops from where he’d been shifting without even realising it.

“Are you okay?” He asks, genuinely concerned now.

“Yes!” August’s voice squeaks, and he clears his throat quietly. “I’m. I’ll be fine, if you stop moving so much.”

“If I’m hurting you, you could just say so,” Rhys says. “I’m not that much of an asshole.” He’s more than a little insulted, really, but he doesn’t say that.

“You’re not _hurting_ me.”

Rhys opens his mouth to ask what is it then, when he realises that August’s hips are hitching up slightly against Rhys’ own.

“...Oh.”

August’s groan sounds vaguely embarrassed. “I told you not to move.”

Rhys doesn’t reply, a hot flush spreading across his face as he realises that the thing pressing against his hip is not, as he’d originally thought, August’s gun.

“I thought that was your _gun_ ,” he eventually says.

August laughs, short and breathless. His hips shift up against Rhys’ again, and to his horrified embarrassment, Rhys finds himself responding, hips pressing down against August’s. It’s stupid, August is such an incredibly annoying person, but he’s also _really hot_ , and Rhys has wondered what it would be like to grab him by his stupid scruff and kiss him for months now, but this is really quite possibly the worst place and time ever.

It doesn’t stop Rhys from thrusting minutely down against August, however.

“Oh?” August’s hand on Rhys’ back shifts slightly lower, to cup the upper part of his buttocks, not pulling him down or pushing him away, just holding him there.

“Shut up,” Rhys mumbles, and stills his hips with an effort.

August lets go immediately, leaving Rhys’ back feeling oddly cold. “Sorry,” he mutters, actually sounding contrite.

“I mean--” Rhys blurts out, and then stops, because fuck, this is embarrassing. He turns his head, pressing his face against August’s shoulder to hide his blush. Unnecessarily, because it’s not like August can see him, not with their current positions and in the darkness, but he feels embarrassed enough to do it anyway. “You can...keep going. If you want to.”

August slides his hand up past Rhys’ side to rest on his lower back once again. “You sure?” He asks, gruff and curt even as his other hand comes up, and cups Rhys’ ass in a way that makes Rhys’ breath hitch.

“Yeah, just- we have to keep _quiet_ , okay?” Rhys whispers, and bites down on his own lip to keep a moan in as August shifts one of his leg between Rhys’, and pulls him down against it.

“Fuck, yeah okay, quiet.” August’s chest shakes in silent laughter before he starts thrusting up against Rhys, slowly and carefully.

Rhys rides it out, doing his best to stay quiet as well. It’s an odd experience, enclosed in near complete darkness in such a tight space, silent other than the muffled sounds of Sasha and Vaughn’s conversation, still going on outside, and the sounds of their own breathing, growing heavier as they grind against each other slowly.

One of August’s hands slips up beneath Rhys’ jacket and pulls his shirt up out of his pants to rest, warm and rough against Rhys’ bare skin. Rhys turns his head blindly, nudging against August until he finds his bare neck. August freezes up when Rhys mouths at the skin there, and Rhys pauses, wondering if this isn’t okay, but then August lets out a gritted, pained sounding groan, and his hips thrust up against Rhys’ so hard that Rhys’ back brushes against the makeshift roof of their hiding spot.

Smiling, Rhys goes back to what he was doing, pressing careful, open mouthed kisses against the line of August’s neck. He tastes like sweat, and dirt, which isn’t a surprise, because _Pandoran_ , but beneath that, his skin is warm, and Rhys can feel the flutter of his heartbeat when he presses his tongue flat against the thin skin there. He brings his left hand up to twine in August’s hair, to feel for himself if it will be as stiff and coarse as he’d expected. It is, but the texture is surprisingly nice against his fingers, which he hadn’t thought he’d like, but well. And it turns out that if he tugs gently, August will actually _whimper_ , and jerk up beneath Rhys. Laughing quietly, Rhys threads his hand through August’s hair, and wriggles up a little to press a kiss to the underside of August’s chin.

In retaliation, August’s other hand comes up to tug at Rhys’ hair, pulling him up into a proper kiss. Rhys spares a mournful thought for the twenty minutes he’d spent before the reunion gelling his hair into place, but he’s soon distracted with the way August kisses, rough and demanding, tongue and teeth pressing against Rhys’ lips as his fingers let go of Rhys’ hair to hold the back of his neck. When Rhys eventually pulls away to take a gasping breath, August darts up to press a nipping kiss to Rhys’ chin, moving to the corner of his mouth as they both struggle to breathe.

“Fuck,” Rhys mumbles, struggling to bring his right hand between them to fumble at August’s belt buckle. “Okay, this has got to go.”

August snorts, but the hand on Rhys’ back goes to help support Rhys as he fumbles and eventually gets August’s belt unbuckled and pushed out of the way. That done, he lets his fingers linger against the bare skin of August’s stomach, where his shirt has ridden up. Beneath the thin skin there, he can feel August’s ab muscles, tensing beneath Rhys’ touch.

“You ticklish?” He asks, curious.

“Bit.” August admits it, exhaling harshly. “Your hand could be put to better use elsewhere,” he continues, bringing the hand that had been cupping Rhys’ neck down between them to start fumbling at Rhys’ pants pointedly.

Rhys snorts, but with August’s help, gets his own pants unbuttoned and out of the way. It takes a bit more fumbling, and then both their cocks are out, and August has them both in his hand while Rhys holds himself up on his right hand and tries to keep as quiet as possible. It’s hard- heh- because August’s grip is calloused, firm and sure as he holds them both in his grip, and thrusts up, sliding his cock against Rhys’.

“Ahh. _Fuck_.” Rhys muffles his groan against August’s neck.

“Uh huh.” August grunts, hand holding them both together as he thrusts up against Rhys. Then he lets go, and goes to grip Rhys’ hips instead. “Keep quiet,” he warns, before starting to pull Rhys down against him, hands tight on Rhys’ hips.

Rhys nods, tucking his face in against August’s neck and lets himself get pulled along on the ride as August starts up a slow grind, this time a thousand times more intense than before, with the way their cocks are sliding against each other, the friction made slick by the precome from both of them.

There’s no sound but fabric shifting softly against each other and their breathing, and Rhys loses himself in the sensations, lips parted and pressed against August’s cheek, his neck, the sweaty hair at his temples. At some point, August’s hands move from his hips to slide into the back of his pants, pushing past his underwear to grab Rhys’ ass in a firm grip that leaves Rhys whimpering.

“Shh,” August reminds him, but his own voice is ragged and when Rhys moves to kiss him, he lets out a muffled groan against Rhys’ lips.

It’s ridiculous, they’re stuck hiding from the friends that they were spying on, and they don’t even _like_ each other all that much, but somehow, Rhys is so turned by the entire situation that it’s hard to breathe. Maybe it’s because this is the first time in _months_ that he’s been in- well, a sexual situation would be one way to describe it.

“I’m-- pretty sure this is the most unhygienic thing I’ve ever done,” Rhys mumbles, trying to distract himself from how close he is to coming. “God, you better not get any come on my pants, you asshole.”

Beneath him, August lets out a short gasping laugh, his grip on Rhys’ ass tightening, and he jerks up against Rhys once, twice, before letting out a muffled groan.

“Did you just--” Rhys brings his left hand down, feeling at the sudden spread of hot wetness against his stomach incredulously. 

August’s head thunks back against the ground, and he loosens his grip on Rhys’ ass with a sheepish sigh. “It should really not turn me on when you say dumb shit like that,” he says grumpily.

“Wha- How was that- Is that an insult?” Rhys exclaims, indignant and flattered all at once.

“Shut up,” August replies intelligently, and brings one hand between them to grab Rhys’ cock. “Keep it down, dumbass.”

Rhys opens his mouth to say something, he doesn’t know what, because just then August’s other hand slips between Rhys’ cheeks, pressing one finger down against his hole, and Rhys lets out a whimper instead, jerking forward and dropping his head against August’s shoulder.

“Ha-aah, shit,” he whines, keeping his mouth pressed to August’s neck to muffle himself.

“Shh!” August tightens his grip on Rhys’ cock, and his finger between Rhys’ cheeks pauses. “Shut _up_. Kiss me.”

“Okay, okay, good idea” Rhys nods, and shifts so that he can press his lips to August’s, muffling his moan there.

“Good.” August mumbles the words against Rhys, and returns the kiss with fervor. His hands start up again, one rubbing at Rhys’ hole while the other goes to jerk him off slowly. Too slowly, Rhys wants to yell at him to go faster, but he keeps his mouth shut, expresses his impatience by thrusting down into August’s grip and biting down on his lower lip. August chuckles, barely audible, and speeds up willingly enough, and it takes a few more strokes before Rhys is coming, gasping against August’s mouth as he spills into his hand.

Done, he slumps down on August, breathing hard and shuddering as he comes down from the high. August brings his hand out of Rhys’ pants, and rests it on Rhys’ back, his hand heavy and warm.

“...Your hands were just down my buttcrack.”

“Yeah?” August shifts a little beneath Rhys, and lets out a satisfied sound. “I never knew you had such a nice ass, beneath those pants of yours.”

“Um. That’s very flattering.” And it is, Rhys hates it but he feels himself blush, the warm spread of genuine pleasure going through his chest. It’s a struggle to remind himself that August is still an incredibly annoying and insufferable person, even if his hands are really nice and his body is really hot, and he’s surprisingly _nice_. “But your hands are probably not the cleanest right now, and this jacket is new.”

It is. He’d picked it out right before setting out to “meet Fiona”. It’s not all that different from the ones he wore on a day-to-day basis as he rebuilt Atlas, but it’s made of much nicer materials than his normal ones, for obvious reasons.

There’s absolute silence for a long moment, and then August starts shaking beneath him.

“What- Are you laughing?” Rhys sits up as much as he can, shrugging August’s hand off his back.

“No,” August lies, still shaking in laughter beneath Rhys. “God, I forgot how _weird_ you were.” He wriggles his hand out from between their bodies, and lays it down by their side. “I’m guessing you don’t want this hand touching your fancy jacket either.”

“ _No_.” Rhys hisses, slamming his clean mechanical hand down on August’s shoulder. August lets out a satisfying _oof_ , but laughs again, sounding a lot more genial than normal. Clearly, orgasms made him more amenable in general, good to know.

“Oh god, I hope none of it got on our pants,” Rhys says mournfully. “And don’t you dare laugh, this is serious, we have to fight tomorrow and I don’t have a spare set.”

August goes silent.

“You don’t have any spare pants either, do you?” Rhys says suspiciously.

Silence, and then a very sullen “No.”

Rhys snorts, and pats August’s chest. “Better hope our clothes remain come free, then.”

August lets out a restrained sigh in response. Rhys resettles himself on August, his entire crotch area kind of feeling gross and sticky now that they’ve come, and there’s all that mess.

“Ugh. I need a shower. When are Vaughn and Sasha gonna _leave_?” He all but whines, shifting irritably to try and find a comfortable position.

“Actually…” August says, very slowly.

“What, what is it?” Rhys says, on alert.

“Well, it’s been quite a while since I last heard them.”

They both pause, straining to listen. Now that August mentions it, it’s been a while since Rhys last heard their voices. There’s a full minute of silence as they try to listen, but there’s nothing but their breathing.

“I think it should be safe,” August says, and starts nudging Rhys down.

“...When did you realise this?” Rhys says suspiciously, even as he’s gingerly wriggling his way down and off August’s body, fumbling at his pants to rebutton them up as he goes, just in case Sasha and Vaughn are nearby outside. Luckily, when he crawls out and straightens up to peek around the debris, the coast is clear.

“About the time my hand was down your pants. Did you want me to stop then?” August gets to his feet with a lot more grace than Rhys had, a smirk on his face.

Rhys scowls at him, not really wanting to lie, but also not wanting to give August the satisfaction. Instead, he brushes himself off, and checks his pants. They’re actually not that badly stained, most of it got onto their stomachs, it looks like. He gingerly wipes at the mess, fishing around with his mechanical hand for a tissue or something.

“Here.” August hands him a rag.

Rhys takes it, giving it a suspicious look, but it looks clean enough, other than where August had clearly used it to wipe at his own stomach. “...Thanks,” he says, and hands it back to August when he’s done. “We should start heading back before they wonder where we’ve gone to. Not that this wasn’t fun or anything, but now we’ve lost track of Sasha and Vaughn, and-- Wait, which way did we come from?”

August snorts, and heads off without waiting for Rhys, leaving Rhys to stumble after him.

They make their way back to the main residential area of the camp in silence, except for August’s pointed snorts when Rhys apparently doesn’t live up to his standards of grace and dignity. It’s a lot more often than Rhys would like to admit to, but he tells himself it's because the path involves climbing over fallen buildings and crawling under fallen sections of buildings, and so on and so forth.

He’s not _used_ to this, okay? Most days, he's in his office or his lab, not doing fucking _parkour_ like it seems the rest of Pandora does for a hobby.

At least they both seem to have agreed to not talk about the entire thing that had just happened, which Rhys is kind of relieved about. After all, they all had their duties tomorrow, and nobody knew if they were even gonna survive what was coming, so maybe, Rhys thinks to himself, they can both just let it be as some kind of mutual stress relief.

...Not that Rhys wouldn’t be amenable to a continuation of things, but he’s not gonna be the first one to bring it up, because he has his pride.

Just as he’s thinking that, August pauses, and catches Rhys’ arm.

“Hey,” he says, voice very gruff.

Rhys pauses too, and gives him a quizzical look. August fidgets for a moment, and then lets go of Rhys’ arm to rub at the back of his neck.

“If- My bunk has a private bathroom, if you want to clean up before heading to sleep.” He doesn’t make eye contact with Rhys, but the fingers of the hand resting at his side twitch nervously.

“Didn’t the ones Vaughn gave us all have priva-- Oh.” Rhys blinks, realisation dawning. He stutters over the next few words, trying to play it cool. “I-- Um. If you want to- My bathroom’s probably nicer, because I have faith in Vaughn my buddy, but yours is--”

August cuts him off with a hand over Rhys’ mouth. Sputtering, Rhys shakes his hand off, horrified because he knows _exactly_ where that hand has been. August lets him brush his hand aside, but there’s a squint to his stupidly blue eyes that looks almost fond, and definitely amused. Rhys scowls, despite the warm feeling that rises in him.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Come on then," August says, turning and continuing down their path.

"Dibs on first shower," Rhys says immediately.

There's no response, but Rhys _swears_ he can feel the force of August's eyeroll even though August is turned away from him right now. Making a face at his stupid back, Rhys follows.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://ssealdog.tumblr.com) :D


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